How to Get By
by City of Pompeii
Summary: AU/AH; "Do you ever think about us? About what our future will be like?" Her life fell apart. He was there to catch her, then the sun came up and reality set in. He loved her before he knew it was too late./Stelena&Delena.
1. Hungry Not Far From Dying

**A/N:** _Hey, there. The main reason I'm writing this fic is for fun. And I also really wanted to see how the beloved Vampire Diaries characters (at least some of them) work in the ordinary world, so... Yeah, I will write a little bit of **Delena**, and a little bit of **Stelena**. Because I love them both. I'm sure I'm not the only one that reads/watches some Delena stuff when I want some passion and lust and sexytimes, and reads/watches some Stelena when I'm up for some warmth and tenderness and totally dreamy relationships. *Sigh* The struggles of having a big bu - I mean loving two ships from the same show._

_Kind of short chapter, but you'll live._

_Anyway, enjoy._

**_I do not own The Vampire Diaries_**

* * *

**ONE**

The twenty two and twenty five year old Elena Gilbert and Damon Salvatore owned a small apartment in Brooklyn and a practically ancient, black used car together. They also had a Goldendoodle named Doctor Hairy with nut brown eyes and a missing left front foot. They'd received him from a shelter - he'd been in a tough fight the month before where the other dog had torn off half his paw with its teeth, leaving the vets obligated to remove the whole thing.

Right the second, Elena and Damon were sitting in their car, on the road to have a cheap, rushed dinner at Mouthy Merlin's Mini Steakhouse. It was 8 PM.

"You sure we can afford this?" wondered Elena, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. "I'm not."

"Yes," Damon replied with a pleading groan. "You need to relax, okay? Please. It's our anniversary. This is supposed to be _fun_."

"I'm just saying; we could have stayed home and ordered a pizza and drink some wine instead. This really isn't necessary."

"Yes, it is," Damon said, looking at her with the same, awfully charming smolder that had very much crushed her fragile heart to thousand bits the first time they'd met. "Because, and I repeat; it's our anniversary. And because I love you. You, Elena, are the very woman I lo - "

A loud, deafening roar from the horn of another car was heard, and Damon swung abruptly. "Oops," he chuckled. "Sorry!"

"Damon, keep your eyes on the freaking road!" Elena yelled, her heart pounding like an aggressive hammer. Could someone please tell her why she'd been dating him for three years?

"How can I when you're sitting _right _there with your glorious breasts and behind?" He was laughing. How could he be _laughing_? They'd almost died._  
_

"You can't see my behind," Elena sighed, uselessly trying to calm her rapid heartbeat.

"No," Damon smiled, shrugging loosely. "But I sure do want to."

"Damon Salvatore, why are you not wearing a seatbelt? Are you crazy?" Elena chortled nervously at the ridicilous way he was acting. "Put it on, Damon. I'm not kidding."

"I like to live a little risky!" He laughed harshly as Elena tried to force the belt under his arm.

"Please, Damon, you're scaring the heck out of me," Elena begged. "Put the seatbelt on."

"I will. If you marry me."

"Are you drunk?"

"No. I'm sober, I just want to marry you, Elena, okay? I promise I'm sober. Wouldn't be driving otherwise." He sounded pretty sober. "I'll put the stupid seatbelt on if you say yes."

"Damon?"

"Yeah?" he said, not jerking his eyes off her. "Yes, dearest?"

"Put. The. Seatbelt. On."

"Say you'll marry me," he grinned. "I love you, Elena. We've been together for ages. And you love _me_, and we both have good jobs. Come on."

The way he looked at her... it was nearly impossible to resist. It had been as long as Elena could remember. His mezmerising, pale blue eyes, his beautiful, shapely mouth, muscular jawline and _so _endearing smile...

Elena groaned.

"Fine. We'll get married. Eventually," she said. "Now put on the seatbelt before we - "

_BANG!_

She was tossed forward by an incredible force, but fiercely held back by the seatbelt. A sharp, sudden pain was pierced like a hundred needles deep into her chest.

Her teeth hurt.

Something red gradually covered her sight. Damon was gone.

It all went black for a while.

* * *

It felt like eternity before she woke up. At least so she thought.

Damon. _Where the hell was Damon?_

Elena Gilbert shrieked hysterically in pure and raw terror, which was overwelming her completely.

Confusion. Agony. It'd all occured so fast. Too fast.

Damon hadn't been wearing a seatbelt. He hadn't even looked at the road.

"What..." she hardly managed to speak. It felt as if she was about to throw up kilograms of liquid. She screamed again. And again.

"Damon! Damon! Where's Damon?! God, please, God, where is - " She spit out a piece of her tooth, covered in carmine colored blood. _Oh, God, no._

_Please, please. I'll marry him. I'll do anything, please, please, don't let Damon be dead. Just... I'll do anything._

Elena felt hot tears run from her eyes, and she sobbed, hopelessly attempting to free herself from the seatbelt. "Damon..." she begged, desperately scanning the car. He wasn't in his seat. He was...

There was a truck in front of their car. A huge one with gigantic wheels and an unconscious driver. On the hood of Damon and Elena's car, a tall, lanky male body lay motionlessly, a puddle of redness surrounding the area.

_No._

_Damon._

In Elena's hair, tiny pieces of fractured glass were stuck. A strange, sickening taste of rotten iron spread in the back of her mouth like a plague, and Elena coughed hoarsely. Blood.

"Damon!" she cried, reaching to touch his foot. The shoe was left in the car. "Damon, answer me. Damon!"

He didn't answer her.

Elena could hear sirens. Far away. "Damon, they're coming. Please. Don't you be dead. Damon. Damon. Wake the hell _up!"_ She weeped. "Please, I will marry you, just... don't - don't be dead, I love you. I love you. I love you, I love you..."

She felt something on her arm. Limbs. A warm hand. "Miss?"

"Miss, are you alright? Can you move? Are you in any pain?" asked a deep, unfamiliar voice. "What's your name?"

"Damon..."

* * *

_Liked it? Hated it? Let me know. -_


	2. Crazy&Stressed

**A/N: **_Howdie! So, pretty much what I want to tell you (however many 'you's there are out there, reading this), is that all restaurants and hospitals and everything except the location this story takes place in (Brooklyn) is all fictional. Don't start googling. _

_Please do enjoy_

* * *

**_[2]_**

Stefan Salvatore was sitting gloomily in his sloppy apartment, in the middle of typing in another heartbreaking (heartbreakingly horrible) sentence from his under-production novel when he received the very unpredicted call. The room was dark, and it startled him powerfully, to say the least, when the phone rang loudly in his pocket, making him flinch violently where he sat, glasses on and hair messy from hours and hours hopelessly attempting to create - or _squeeze _out, to be more accurate - a decent paragraph of content.

He didn't even bother checking who was calling.

"Hello?" His forever and only companion in life was a black HTC with a slightly broken screen and _hardly _any contacts. Stefan had been considering getting a new one for quite some time by now, but he never seemed to have the right amount of time, even though he was anything but busy. Maybe he'd just gotten strangely attached to the little cracked phone he'd gotten as a Christmas present from Damon a couple of years ago. Used, of course. The phone was used. Stefan bet Damon had robbed some innocent, old lady on the street to get his hands on it. Not that an innocent, old lady would have an HTC.

Well, that was kind of wrong. His phone wasn't his only true friend. There was also Zeus, his cat. Yeah, he was a guy owning a cat. A cat man. Or, he didn't exactly own it, it just had a tendency to pay him visits whenever it was hungry.

"_Oh, God, Stefan..._" Someone was crying unstoppably at the other end.

Stefan went from to confused to frightened in less than a moment, instantly feeling the highly unpleasant terror crawl its way up his back; cold, damp paws with long claws as sharp as knife blades. "Who is this?"

"_It's your mommy,"_ she said. "It's_ been a car accident, baby. You need to - you should - I - oh, God - you should come to the hospital. You have to. Damon - he's... he's..._" Her voice chipped, and she bursted, whimpering like a child. "_God..._"

"What the hell happened? Is he - " Stefan stopped himself and gulped, afraid to continue. "Mom..."

"_I don't know. I don't know... Just come, Stefan_." His mother sounded almost as if she was commanding him at the end, her voice hardened and unstable, that was how desperate she had to be. He could nearly _hear _the water race down her fair, rosy cheeks, probably making her thin, hazel brown hairlocks cling to her skin.

"I'm on my way." Stefan hung up and dropped his phone to the floor. It hit the burgundy carpet beneath him with a silent thud. He stormed out the door.

The painful, _slow_ drive to Sacred Calantha Hospital mobbed him to madness. He wasn't allowed to drive any faster than sixty kilometers an hour, causing him to knead the steering wheel frantically with his hands, which were sweaty and freezing with coldness. _What the hell had Damon done_? Drunk while driving? Forgotten to put on his seatbelt _again_? Had someone run him over?

Stefan furiously parked his car outside the hospital, went out, slammed the door shut and spurted past the main entrance. "Where is Damon Salvatore?"

He didn't know how to ask those things. Were you supposed to say '_I'm here to see Mr. Damon Salvatore_' or just give them your own name so they could find you on Damon Salvatore's "family list"? Stefan felt like roaring. "Damon Salvatore, for God's sake!" He snapped at the short, black haired lady in the reception. She had big, green eyes with purple circles beneath.

"Yes, are you family?"

"I'm his brother. Stefan Salvatore. I'm... sorry for screaming at you, I'm just a little stressed out right now."

"It's fine. I've seen worse." Eve (her name sign) smiled gently and let her eyes fall to the computer in front of her. "Anyway... He's in surgery, but you may wait in room 192."

Stefan groaned. "And where the hell is room 192?"

"Uhm..."

"Stefan." Another voice was heard. Stefan turned around, only to see Damon's girlfriend, Elena Gilbert; a quite tall, slender brunette with olive skin and a round face. He wasn't sure of how long his brother had been dating her, but she had become familiar to him through several Christmas and birthday celebrations. "Elena, are you...?"

She had a bleeding cut on her temple, but she didn't appear to notice, so Stefan tried not to look as if he did, either.

"I'm sorry I wasn't able to call you myself, but, I - I..." Her eyes were watery and swollen, making the warm, brown color in her irises look glistening. "He's... We didn't see the truck, and it just happened so fast - "

"It's okay," Stefan said, struggling to keep his voice steady. Elena was trembling and uttered in a low voice; "No, it's not okay, he might _die_! On our anniversary, I - I can't - " Without paying it more thought, Stefan pulled her into an embrace, hugging her half heartedly. He didn't really know her that well, and she felt so small and fragile and thin in his arms, he was scared to even tighten his grip. "It's okay."

"No!" Elena sobbed, but still clinged to him like a little child. "God, no... I can't get by without him."

"It's okay," Stefan repeated, pressing Elena closer. "Damon is going to be okay. We need to have hope. Otherwise, we don't have anything, right?" After a few minutes passed by, Elena gradually calmed down, and eventually stopped the crying with a shaky sigh. "I'm sorry. He's your brother, _you_ shouldn't be the one comforting _me._" She rubbed the tears off her eyes with the back of her wrist.

"It's okay." Stefan shrugged.

"You can stop saying that it's okay now," Elena said, stepping back, letting her arms fall.

"Yeah. Sorry." Stefan cleared his throat, awkwardly burying his hands in his pockets. "Did... anyone have a look at that wound? It's pretty deep."

Elena touched her temple, like she needed to be reminded. "Yeah. They cleaned it when I got here. Said I was lucky. _Lucky." _She let out a harsh, cold laugh._  
_

"You were."

"I think your mother is waiting for you," she said, switching subject.

"She hates being comforted," Stefan replied. "She says it makes her feel weak. I'm going to let her be alone for a bit."

"Yeah. Joan is like that." Elena tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Stefan noticed that she didn't ask about his and Damon's father, which had to mean she knew of Giuseppe's current and likely permanent absence. "Would you like some coffee, or...?" asked Stefan.

"Sure. Yeah."

Stefan filled two paper cups of hot coffee from the tiny, loud machine, and when he came back, Elena wasn't alone. There was another girl there who looked tired, and wore of those trendy suits for women. "Stefan, this is Bonnie Bennett. Bonnie, Stefan," she said. "Damon is Stefan's brother."

Bonnie was a short, mocca skinned young woman with pitch black, tight curls and a heart-shaped face - the heart shape caused by a widow's peak. She gave Stefan a brief, sad smile before looking at Elena again. "I came as fast as I could," she said. "Are they done operating yet?"

"No. He's still in there," Elena said. "God..."

"What exactly happened? _How _did it happen?" asked Bonnie.

"I would also like to know that," Stefan said.

"We were on our way to dinner, then Damon proposed to me in the most _non-romantic _way in the history of proposals," Elena laughed joylessly. "We did some tame arguing for a while, then the truck came out of nowhere. It was like we were pushed in front of it, like destiny wanted to screw up our lives."

"Wait - he proposed to you? In a car?" Bonnie asked. "While driving. Gosh."

"And didn't wear a seatbelt," Stefan grumbled.

"He was tossed through the window," Elena whispered. "It was... terrible. I'm never going to forget the sight of him, lying there. Half dead. It's my fault. If I'd just said yes sooner, instead of wasting time on pointless arguing, he wouldn't be in surgery right now, fighting for his life."

Stefan quickly realized that speaking of it made Elena nervous and triggered panic within her. She looked like breaking again, wrapping her arms around herself and staring at the floor with empty eyes. "God, it's my fault," she breathed.

"Don't think like that," Stefan said. "You couldn't have known."

Elena closed her eyes, rubbing her forehead. "There is something I need to do. I - I don't remember what."

"Elena, maybe you should sit down. Why did the doctors even let you wander around here alone?" Bonnie gently took her arm, leading her carefully towards some chairs by the coffee machine.

"Doctor! That's it," said Elena. "Someone needs to get Doctor Hairy. He's all alone in the apartment."

"Well, you're not going anywhere," Bonnie answered. "He'll survive a couple more hours."

"No, you don't understand! He's just a pup, he needs to get out, okay? Someone needs to go get him." Elena's face grew red, and she started breathing heavier, grabbing the fabric of her sweater, covering her stomach. "He'll poop all over the place if no one walks him..."

"Elena, are you feeling alright?"

"No, I'm not."

"I'll go ask the nurse if she can give you a bed to lie down in." Bonnie said and gave her a quick peck on the cheek before walking away.

"Sorry," Elena groaned, sitting down in the soft chair and pulling her knees to her chin. "I'm acting like a crazy person now."

"It's fine," Stefan said. "Why don't you tell me a little about your dog? He _is _a dog, right?"

"Mhm." Elena smiled a little.

"His name is... Doctor Hairy?" He crouched in front of her. "That's a unique name."

"Yeah. It was Damon's idea. The whole thing. Getting a cute, fluffy dog, living in a sleepy little apartment together, watch sticky, romantic comedies on the couch every now and then, happily pretending that the thought of our future wasn't swirling in both of our heads."

"It sounds pretty idyllic to me."

"It was. It _is_. I love him. More than anything."

"But?"

"But..." Elena said. "With Damon it's always - Argh. No. I'm not going to talk about his flaws when he's in surgery."

"Miss Gilbert, if you're not feeling well, you should get some rest." A nurse with a name sign saying 'Janine', wearing a pink uniform and glasses, came with Bonnie, both with worried expressions on their faces. "Come on, sweetie."

"Okay." Elena rose from the chair. "Thank you, Stefan."

"I don't understand."

"For just being here. I know you're scared, too, but you still managed to make me feel better. Thanks. For the hug, for the words... everything." Elena smiled at him, before pacing off.

* * *

_Loved it? Hated it? Barfed from it? Let me know -_


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